Groundhog Thread v. 2.0 - The most important battle of WW2

[pbehn]

Look man, I'm not gonna do this again. It's pointless and adds nothing to the discussion at hand except you trying to score points. Just let it go, Elsa...

eh? let what go? You are the only person of authority here? What you posted omitted a huge slice of the reality of the time, like the British lost 300 to 500 bombers that had to be replaced, am I to apologise to you for pointing that out? Is pointing that out scoring points?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

eh? let what go? You are the only person of authority here? What you posted omitted a huge slice of the reality of the time, like the British lost 300 to 500 bombers that had to be replaced, am I to apologise to you for pointing that out? Is pointing that out scoring points?

The bomber missions to disrupt the potential invasion were a real thing. I don't know how many losses they suffered, but Hampdens and Whitleys were certainly busy in the summer of 1940. That was actually the sort of mission that was right in their ballpark, too.

 

[nuuumannn]

h? let what go? You are the only person of authority here? What you posted omitted a huge slice of the reality of the time, like the British lost 300 to 500 bombers that had to be replaced, am I to apologise to you for pointing that out? Is pointing that out scoring points?

Again mate, my point had nothing to do with this and you just keep going on about it. Go take a breather, you are getting heated for no reason.

 

[pbehn]

The bomber missions to disrupt the potential invasion were a real thing. I don't know how many losses they suffered, but Hampdens and Whitleys were certainly busy in the summer of 1940. That was actually the sort of mission that was right in their ballpark, too.

As a start point 50% of Hampdens that were made were lost on operations in one way or another. Whitleys continued in service longer because they could carry troops and SOE operatives.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Calm down, relax everyone...

 

[ljadw]

David Kahn's Seizing the Enigma is an excellent read on how the Allies used SIGINT to combat U-boat depredations. The victory in the Atlantic, mainly accomplished by summer of 1943, was not a matter of "chance". It was a matter of devoted investigation, as well as using aircraft (both land-based and shipborne) to close the Mid-Atlantic gap, and the simple hardy bravery of merchantmen sailing under various flags straight into an arena where not only subs were aiming at you, but often nature itself was hostile.

Link is here for anyone interested in reading his book, which focuses on SIGINT rather than the more mundane difficulties faced by seamen sailing that crossing. (I have no affiliation, just grabbed the first link for the book itself).

As an aside, Kahn also crafted some of the most devilish crossword puzzles I've ever encountered, probably (in my opinion) due to his expertise in crypto. His grids are usually very open, and he seems to avoid key break-in signatures like rare letters (Z, K, X, etc), so you have a 25-letter answer that gives you very few tells at all. I don't think he does them any more, but for years he contributed to the NYT crossword, and in that hard puzzle-space stands out as one of the most difficult puzzle authors.

From The Journal of Maritime Research:quantifying countermeasures and detection effectiveness to threats using U Boat data from the Second World War .
Abstract :
1 " The analysis confirms that the use of decryption intelligence did not itself result in a statistically significant increase in U -Boat sinkings ."
2 " Ultra made a far smaller contribution to the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic than is widely supposed "
I like to add that the use of decryption intelligence (from the B Dienst ) did not itself result in a statistically significant increase in MV losses and that the use of decryption intelligence (from Ultra ) did not result itself in a statistically significant increase in the rescue of convoys and that this is also the same ( for both sides ) in the air war .
Radar and code breaking did not sink U Boats,MV, did not kill aircraft ,neither did they rescue U Boats, MV, aircraft .
The reasons are
1 The information was mostly very vague, thus useless
2 When the information was more precise,it was not possible to use it,because of the shortage of U Boats, aircraft, fuel, ammunition, etc ....
PS : I have read the book of Kahn .

 

[pbehn]

From The Journal of Maritime Research:quantifying countermeasures and detection effectiveness to threats using U Boat data from the Second World War .
Abstract :
1 " The analysis confirms that the use of decryption intelligence did not itself result in a statistically significant increase in U -Boat sinkings ."
2 " Ultra made a far smaller contribution to the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic than is widely supposed "
I like to add that the use of decryption intelligence (from the B Dienst ) did not itself result in a statistically significant increase in MV losses and that the use of decryption intelligence (from Ultra ) did not result itself in a statistically significant increase in the rescue of convoys and that this is also the same ( for both sides ) in the air war .
Radar and code breaking did not sink U Boats,MV, did not kill aircraft ,neither did they rescue U Boats, MV, aircraft .
The reasons are
1 The information was mostly very vague, thus useless
2 When the information was more precise,it was not possible to use it,because of the shortage of U Boats, aircraft, fuel, ammunition, etc ....
PS : I have read the book of Kahn .

What happened then? How was it that so much shipping was lost, and U Boats lost and suddenly things changed in 1943?

 

[ljadw]

Sometime shortly before the shooting started, Doenitz told Hitler that he would need ~300 submarines to win the war. The idea was that he needed somewhere around 80-100 submarines active (ie on the hunt) in the Atlantic at any given time. He said that if he had these he could prevent the US from supplying England, and accomplish what they had failed to do in WWI.

While there is no real way to say if this would have worked historically, I have to believe the increase in losses would have been enormous even in relative terms to what the actual historical losses were.

More submarines in the Atlantic does not mean more losses of MV, but more loses of submarines .
If Doenitz said that with more U Boats he could prevent the US from supplying Britain, he was a fool :
Britain was not supplied by the US only
To have 80/100 U Boats active in the Atlantic, he would need more than 500 U Boats and this was excluded .
On 1 January 1942 there were 249 U Boats of which 158 for training,from the remaining 91 only 55 were available for the Atlantic and of these 22 were on patrol at any given time .
And, most important, and this proves that he was not a good U Boat commander : to force Britain to give up did not depend on the amount of supplies that arrived in Liverpool,as Britain was less depending on imports during the war than before the war .Britain had ONE weak point : OIL . If the U Boats were concentrating on the oil tankers,the situation could become dangerous for Britain , but Doenitz preferred to sink ships with spam ,to have his name mentioned in the Sonderberichten from Radio Berlin .

 

[ljadw]

What happened then? How was it that so much shipping was lost, and U Boats lost and suddenly things changed in 1943?

Things did not suddenly change in 1943 .
And more U Boats were lost because there were more U Boats patrolling and more U Boats were attacking convoys .And more attacks mean more losses .

 

[pbehn]

Things did not suddenly change in 1943 .
And more U Boats were lost because there were more U Boats patrolling and more U Boats were attacking convoys .And more attacks mean more losses .

Oh yes they did. Losses during the Battle of the Atlantic - Wikipedia

 

[SaparotRob]

FWIW I am not a robot.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

From The Journal of Maritime Research:quantifying countermeasures and detection effectiveness to threats using U Boat data from the Second World War .
Abstract :
1 " The analysis confirms that the use of decryption intelligence did not itself result in a statistically significant increase in U -Boat sinkings ."
2 " Ultra made a far smaller contribution to the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic than is widely supposed "

The Allies didn't have to sink U-boats to win the Battle of the Atlantic. The Allies had to keep their own ships afloat. Broken ciphers gave away patrol lines and U-boat locations, which allowed the Allies to route their convoys out of harm's way, when the Allies were able to read German mail.

 

[GrauGeist]

Things did not suddenly change in 1943 .
And more U Boats were lost because there were more U Boats patrolling and more U Boats were attacking convoys .And more attacks mean more losses .

Did you know more Germans were killed at Stalingrad because Germany sent so many to fight at Stalingrad?
If Germany sent fewer soldier to Stalingrad, then the Soviets wouldn't have killed so many.

If Japan didn't have so many soldiers on Okinawa, then much fewer would have been killed.

I'm fascinated by this revelation.

Let's see: if Japan only had three carriers at Midway, they wouldn't have lost four!

Brilliant!!

 

[pbehn]

More submarines in the Atlantic does not mean more losses of MV, but more loses of submarines .
If Doenitz said that with more U Boats he could prevent the US from supplying Britain, he was a fool :
Britain was not supplied by the US only
To have 80/100 U Boats active in the Atlantic, he would need more than 500 U Boats and this was excluded .
On 1 January 1942 there were 249 U Boats of which 158 for training,from the remaining 91 only 55 were available for the Atlantic and of these 22 were on patrol at any given time .
And, most important, and this proves that he was not a good U Boat commander : to force Britain to give up did not depend on the amount of supplies that arrived in Liverpool,as Britain was less depending on imports during the war than before the war .Britain had ONE weak point : OIL . If the U Boats were concentrating on the oil tankers,the situation could become dangerous for Britain , but Doenitz preferred to sink ships with spam ,to have his name mentioned in the Sonderberichten from Radio Berlin .

To have 80-100 U Boats operational in the Atlantic Doenitz needed to stop losing between 20 and 40 of them every month, as he was from May 1943, how did that happen when nothing the allies used worked?

 

[GrauGeist]

On 1 January 1942 there were 249 U Boats of which 158 for training,from the remaining 91 only 55 were available for the Atlantic and of these 22 were on patrol at any given time .

It appears your numbers are slightly off.

The first week of 1942 saw over 75 Atlantic/Long-Range U-Boats deployed at sea.

This number does not include new boat shakedown cruises, or coastal U-boats deployed around Europe, the Med. or Black Sea.

It also does not include "Milk Cow" or Mine-layer boats in deployed.

 

[pbehn]

Did you know more Germans were killed at Stalingrad because Germany sent so many to fight at Stalingrad?
If Germany sent fewer soldier to Stalingrad, then the Soviets wouldn't have killed so many.

If Japan didn't have so many soldiers on Okinawa, then much fewer would have been killed.

I'm fascinated by this revelation.

Let's see: if Japan only had three carriers at Midway, they wouldn't have lost four!

Brilliant!!

Carrier losses can be avoided by not building any, says my Ladybird book of logistics.

 

[ljadw]

The Allies didn't have to sink U-boats to win the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes.

The Allies had to keep their own ships afloat.

Yes

Broken ciphers gave away patrol lines and U-boat locations, which allowed the Allies to route their convoys out of harm's way, when the Allies were able to read German mail.

Yes and no .
It should be : broken ciphers gave away some ( not all ) patrol lines and U Boat locations .This means that redirecting convoys is not automatically saving them . Besides redirecting was not always possible AND not redirecting did not mean that the convoys would be attacked .Thus, the danger was not that great .

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, I didn't mean that broken ciphers gave away all info, all the time. That is exactly why I added the caveat "when the Allies were able to read German mail."

I had thought such wording would make clear that the Allies weren't always able to decipher and/or reroute.

 

[ljadw]

It appears your numbers are slightly off.

The first week of 1942 saw over 75 Atlantic/Long-Range U-Boats deployed at sea.

This number does not include new boat shakedown cruises, or coastal U-boats deployed around Europe, the Med. or Black Sea.

It also does not include "Milk Cow" or Mine-layer boats in deployed.

My source is Rahn ''Combat Readiness and Combat Power of German Submarines P 80 ,cited by Magenheimer in ''Hitler's War on P 132 .

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Let's see: if Japan only had three carriers at Midway, they wouldn't have lost four!

Brilliant!!